These salted caramel pecan pie cookies are so easy and so delicious! I made them on the weekend for a dear family member’s birthday party. Tom, the birthday boy, thought they were one of the yummiest things he has ever eaten and as this man has a sweet tooth I take that as high praise.
They have the taste and look of pecan pies but in cookie form – how great is that?
I kept seeing recipes for cakes/cookies/brownies with dulce de leche, a thick caramel sauce that tastes like heaven. Often these recipes would suggest buying the dulce de leche at a deli. Problem was, when I did eventually track down the dulce de leche it was super expensive. Quite honestly, the price was unjustifiable. So I did some research and blamo – I found you could make dulce de leche easily from scratch at home.
Look at the pretty blueberries in these cupcakes. They really are nature’s work of art. I have found a frozen brand of Australian-grown blueberries that I am happy with and always ensure I have a bag in the freezer. I bake with them, the Hungry Dad makes Bircher muesli with them, Miss-now-8 adds them to Greek yogurt and Miss9 is happy to eat a bowl of them for a snack #winning
At the moment in Sydney fresh blueberries are plentiful so you can take your pick when making them delectable blueberry cupcakes with blueberry cream cheese frosting (or cream cheese icing, for my fellow Aussies).
Fresh or frozen works fine and if you opt for frozen there is no need to defrost first.
These blueberry cupcakes are really moist and the Greek yoghurt adds a lovely tang. Try not to eat all the frosting / icing before you ice the cakes – a real danger #OrIsThatJustMe
GATHER:
120g unsalted butter, softened
½ cup caster sugar
1 2/3 cups self-raising flour
2 eggs
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3/4 cup Greek yogurt cream
1 cup blueberries (frozen is fine)
Icing:
180g unsalted butter, softened
250g cream cheese, softened
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
2 cups pure icing sugar, sifted
¼ cup blueberries, extra
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 190°C and line a cupcake pan with wrappers.
In bowl of electric mixer beat butter, sugar and vanilla on medium speed until fluffy and pale – about three minutes.
Scrape down bowl with a spatula then add eggs, one at a time, beating until combined.
Beat in half the flour, then half the yogurt, then rest of flour then rest of yogurt. Using a silver spoon gently stir in the blueberries.
Fill the wrappers two-thirds full and bake for 15-ish minutes or until a skewer inserted into a cake has only a few crumbs clinging to it.
Remove to wire rack too cool completely.
Meanwhile, make icing: In bowl of electric mixer beat cream cheese, vanilla and butter together until pale and creamy – about two minutes. With beater on low beat in icing sugar then increase speed to medium and beat until thoroughly combined. Use a silver spoon to stir through and break up most of the berries, leaving enough for decoration. Scrape icing into ziplock bag, snip off the corner and pipe icing onto cake, then top each one with a single blueberry.
I know what you’re thinking – red wine IN chocolate cake? Red wine while eating chocolate cake – sure. Red wine while cooking cake, of course. But red wine IN chocolate cake? Trust me… red wine chocolate cake is amazing! Continue reading
Cinnamon. That is all.
Not really! I don’t think a four-word blog post can really sum up the feelings I have for this most delicious spice.
I have a recipe on the blog for cinnamon teacake (see it here: https://thehungrymum.com/2012/10/02/classic-old-fashioned-cinnamon-teacake/) and it is such a simple cake but it is often requested by work colleagues as it is light and fluffy.
This recipe was based on one from bakeorbreak.com – I significantly reduced the sugar, and omitted the salt and baking powder.
I named it cinnamon sugar cookie cake because it has the taste and texture of all of these things, but better! If you love butter and cinnamon you will love this cake. As it is cut into squares it is great for feeding a crowd, taking to a picnic or packing into lunchboxes.
Cinnamon sugar cookie cake would also make an easy dessert when served with custard, ice-cream (or both) or alongside a warming apple crumble / apple crisp.
Don’t blame me if this cake tips your admiration for cinnamon into full-blown addiction J
GATHER:
115 grams of butter, diced, at room temperature
¾ cup caster sugar
1/2 cup canola oil
2 eggs
1/2 cup milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract
3 cups plain flour
topping: 3 tablespoons sugar mixed with three teaspoons cinnamon
LET’S GET TO IT:
Preheat oven to 180C and grease and line a 20cm by 20cm square cake tin.
In bowl of lectric mixer beat together the butter, oil, eggs, milk, sugar and vanilla until combined. Pour in flour and beat until mixed.
Scrape into tin, level the top and sprinkle over the topping.
Bake for 25 minutes – you may need an extra five or so minutes depending on your oven. Cool completely in pan before cutting into squares.
This blueberry pudding cake is such a moist, easy-to-bake, delicious cake that you’ll throw away all your other blueberry baking recipes.
The fact that it is an egg-free cake recipe is a bonus, especially if you buy 36 eggs at a time but plough through them so quickly you often are left with just one solitary egg in the carton. Or is that just me?
Before our chooks went to hen heaven – RIP Kaitlyn and Jakeson – we always had a stash of perfect, huge, delicious eggs at our disposal. Now, I only buy free range eggs but what with all the scandal and court cases RE certain egg producers lying about their free range status it is really hard. I often leave smaller supermarkets empty-handed if I can’t find my brands. Farmers markets are the best but that doesn’t help if it is Tuesday night and the market isn’t until Saturday!
This cake is perfect when it is just under baked so it retains a pudding-like consistency. I think lashings of custard would make a wonderful friend for this cake – try my easy recipe here: the best custard recipe from scratch
GATHER:
2 cups self-raising flour
250 grams unsalted butter, diced, softened
¾ cup caster sugar
3/4 cup milk
1 cup Greek yogurt
1 cup blueberries – frozen is fine, don’t defrost
1 tsp vanilla extract
LET’S GET TO IT:
Grease a 20cm by 20cm square baking pan and line with non-stick baking paper and preheat oven to 180C.
In bowl of electric mixer beat the sugar and butter until pale and creamy.
Scrape down sides with a spatula then beat in vanilla and yogurt.
Add half the milk, then half the flour, then repeat. Beat until mixed – do not overbeat.
Use a silver spoon to stir in the berries carefully – you don’t want to stain the batter blue.
Scrape into tin, level the top with offset spatula and bake in oven for around 45 minutes – insert skewer to check, you want it moist but not raw.
Leave in tin to cool, then slice into squares to serve. Sprinkle with icing sugar to serve.
My mum can grow lavender like nobody else can. While I buy and plant pot after pot that slowly withers and dies hers flourishes through little more than neglect and the occasional picking of a few stems.
I adore lavender, not lest because it is so bee-friendly. And as we (should) all know by now, no bees = no me.
It is also wonderful to cook with. I have posted recipes previously for lavender and honey cupcakes https://thehungrymum.com/2015/05/26/lavender-and-honey-cupcakes/
and lavender and lemon cake https://thehungrymum.com/2014/07/18/how-to-make-lavender-and-lemon-cake/
I wondered how it would pair with chocolate – the answer, in case you’re curious, is very well indeed. I am somewhat of a novice fudge-maker but I was very happy with these results.
I think a batch of chocolate lavender fudge in a tin would make a lovely ‘thinking of you’ or ‘welcome to the neighbourhood’ gift. At Christmas it would also make a pretty addition to the dessert table.
I tweaked a recipe from Boulder Locavore, here’s the original: http://boulderlocavore.com/chocolate-lavender-fudge-with-salted-caramel-top/
If you need to buy lavender for this recipe ensure it is food-grade. You may have to seek it out at specialist food shops – don’t grab a bunch from your florist or garden centre as it is important to only use blooms that haven’t been sprayed with any chemicals.
GATHER:
2 ½ cups dark chocolate, chopped
1 can sweetened condensed milk
3 tablespoons butter
1 tablespoon lavender, finely snipped with scissors
sprinkle best quality salt – I used vanilla salt
LET’S GET TO IT:
Spray a 20cm x 20cm slice pan with non-stick spray then line with non-stick baking paper, allowing overhang.
In a medium glass or ceramic bowl place the chocolate, sweetened condensed milk and butter. Chose a pan on which the bowl will snugly fit, then fill the pan about a third of the ay with water. Place bowl on top, heat to a simmer, then stir the mix until melted and smooth.
Remove from heat then scrape into pan. Carefully tap on bench a few times to remove air bubbles, then sprinkle over the lavender and salt.
Cool in the fridge overnight, then slice into small squares to serve.
I am the whitest girl you will ever meet but I feel that the addition of the brackets to this blog post sound like something Snoop Dog would rap. Or not – see previous comments RE white girl.
The reason I added these key words is when I’m on a mission to find a new baking recipe I am often hobbled by the little words that are usually hidden two-thirds of the way through the recipe ‘allow dough to chill in fridge for 2 hours.’ Ain’t no-one got time for that when school pick-up is looming. Continue reading
I was looking for an important note on the fridge the other day and was confronted with a rainforest worth of paper. Photos. Drawings. Receipts. Notices from school / Brownie Guides/ dancing. And a recipe torn from a magazine for chocolate dessert cookies.
Naturally I abandoned the search for said note and immediately set to work making these bickies. Continue reading
![Chai bundt cake [The Hungry Mum]](https://thehungrymum.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/08/chai-bundt-cake-the-hungry-mum.jpg)
On a recent child-free weekend in Sydney the Hungry Dad and I explored the stunningly elegant Stand Arcade. We found the amazing Gewürzhaus, a teeny shop crammed with herbs, spices, salts and teas from all around the world.
After sampling some lovely mulled wine as we perused the boutique we ended up leaving with a heavy bag and lighter wallet. One of our purchases was a chai tea mix and let me tell you: this brew was the real deal. Full of orange peel, cardamom and other chunky bits of deliciousness it soon became a fav in the Hungry House. Continue reading
the hungry mum 